The Smell of Home
by Sherlia
Summary: Bits and pieces of Annabeth's life, all revolving around the smell of home. Percabeth.


_**The Smell of Home, as promised. The longest I ever wrote, yay for me! This was originally meant to be something detailing Annabeth's birth and childhood, then somewhere along the way the storyline wrestled itself from my fingers and bam, new, long story.**_

 _ **Some parts have to be twisted to fit in this, so please don't review and complain about how that isn't what actually happens.**_

 _ **Also, next I will be doing a drabble fic about Percabeth and other cannon couples and it might take a while, so please put up with me. (I'm accepting suggestions, you can PM me them if you want.)**_

 _ **I'm a girl. Rick Riordan is a guy. Enough said.**_

 _ **REVIEW, as always.**_

* * *

 _One second she isn't there, the next she is._

The world's bright and foreign and colorful, and she's disoriented. She wants to go back to comfort and warmth and darkness. Everything's weird and strange and there's vibrations that produce something that echoes through her head. It makes her weary, and she burrows deeper into warmth and comfort and home.

There's more sounds now, meant to be gentle and soothing but actually just making it hurt more. She tries to get the something or someone to stop by grabbing anything within reach but she fails.

Her eyes travel about, taking in new and complex shapes and structures and she wants to explore more, but there's pain again, and she just wants everything to _stopstopstop_ , because everything's going so fast she can't process anything that's going on and she needs to _understand._

"Go to sleep, Annabeth. Remember, I love you." All she hears are a meaningless bunch of sounds that don't help with the brightness and the pain and the confusion, but she mentally thanks the person for trying at least.

Then she gives in to the darkness and it steals in through the sides, taking over her mind.

She sleeps.

* * *

When she wakes she's in a different room.

Things are running over her, over body parts Annabeth doesn't know the name of, her arms and legs and head. The touch is soft and soothing, but she can tell the person whose touching her now is different.

He holds her head at a more awkward angle, her leg is carelessly thrown over something soft.

She doesn't understand. Where's the person who had held her just now? Where is she? Annabeth wants to see her. Maybe she'll be able to help.

The person handling her is clumsy and the position he cradles Annabeth in is deeply uncomfortable, but she gets the skin to skin contact she craves, so she relaxes and wishes the woman would come back soon.

Annabeth first cried for a mother that was long gone.

* * *

When she's a month old Annabeth still doesn't understand. Where is the woman who had held her? Her touch was soft and comforting and everything home should be, unlike this new, foreign touch. He smells of worn books and ink, and Annabeth does like his smell, but she longs for a taste of home. That smell doesn't taste of home.

And so she cries and she wails and she screams, because maybe then she would get to smell home again. Maybe if she makes a fuss, old books and ink would disappear and home will come.

Home never does.

* * *

She's two months old and she hasn't smelt home in a long, long, time. She starts to understand that even if she makes a fuss, home doesn't come back. Home never will.

She cries and screams and wails now because she wants something she can't have, and wishes the longing will go away.

Annabeth weeps for a home that was never there.

* * *

Three months old. Still not a single taste of home.

She doesn't understand, but she has grown to like old, worn books and ink—he's always there taking care of her. She relies on him, and the smell of old books and ink have grown uncannily familiar to her over the past few months.

But she still wants home. The burning ache in her is something only home can fix, and no amount of old books and ink will be able to fix that.

* * *

She grows for six years without smelling home again.

Her father brings home a new woman—Helen, she introduces herself as, and Annabeth can see the disdain in her eyes. She doesn't like Annabeth, and she doesn't know why. She foolishly hopes, for a moment, that this woman could be her mother and she would smell home again.

She doesn't.

She doesn't know what Helen smells like. Her smell is always hidden under flowery perfume that overpowers what she actually smells like. Annabeth doesn't like it. She swears she'll never wear perfume when she grows up.

Helen and her father get married, and soon they are holding two bundles of joy. The first time a hellhound appears at their back door and Annabeth hurls a hammer to kill it, she decides that even though she hates Helen, she still loves her father and her baby brothers. She won't let them be in danger because of her.

She plots and plans and two weeks later, she runs away from home. No, it wasn't ever home. It was just a place she lived in. Home was long gone.

* * *

Annabeth smells home again, finally, when she's seven.

She leaps out at two people, a boy and a girl, her ADHD notes before she is upon them, waving her hammer around and heaving. She screams and shouts for them to go away and she is scared, more than anything else in the world because these monsters look like human, and it would be so much harder to kill them, if necessary.

She catches a whiff of the way they smell as she leaps at them—it sometimes help her judge what kind of monster they were. Hellhounds smell of death and of darkness and of Hades; empousai smell sickly sweet, of rotting flowers and decay. She doesn't know what type of monsters these are, though, and she hopes the smell will be able to help her distinguish them.

She freezes as the boy—Luke, she later learns—catches her wrists and pins her to the dirty, grimy wall of the alley. "Don't worry," he says calmly, soothingly, and Annabeth fights the urge to knee him where it hurts and escape.

She's hysterical then, because he's telling her _not to worry_ , after he has her pinned to the damn wall and stole her only means of defending herself and tells her not to worry! How could anyone _not_?

And then they're reassuring her that they're demigods too, and Annabeth just simply stops fighting and listens for a moment, not because she's convinced they aren't monsters but because it's been so long since she's heard someone talk to her like that, in a tone not full of disdain and apprehension.

She registers what they are saying though, and she quickly agrees to go with them. Firstly, because she starts to believe they are demigods too. They just radiate power. Secondly, because it's not likely she's gonna survive on her own anyway, and maybe with them she won't have to go back, her head lowered, and see that piercing glare Helen will give her. _Why did you come back? We were so happy without you!_ Thirdly, because that whiff she had gotten—it shocks her into trusting they won't steal everything she has or do something to her once she goes with them.

They smell of home, and thus Annabeth opens her heart and allows herself to trust these demigods.

* * *

Home vanishes with Thalia on the hill.

Luke doesn't smell of home anymore. He's bitter and angry at the gods for not saving Thalia and maybe she can understand how he feels, but she still doesn't think he should be cursing the gods out the way he is.

Luke smells bitter, like revenge and hatred. She doesn't like it. She wants to smell home again.

So sometimes she goes and sits below Thalia's tree, and pretends she can smell Thalia and not the pine tree, she wishes and tries to smell home again.

She never does.

* * *

Annabeth's tired and weary when she hears news of a new camper.

She can't help but think, "Could he be _the one_?" And Luke laughs at her, hard, and says bitterly, "See? The Olympians have you trained, like a dog, obeying their every wish." Thunder always rumbles when he says that and Annabeth doesn't reply, cause truth be told, she is confused. She doesn't know if she should listen to Luke or place her trust in her mother.

And so each time she dutifully trudges down to the Big House, checks out the new camper and judges.

They aren't ever _the one,_ and she grows exhausted over time.

Luke always laughs at her, and that's when she understands that Luke will never smell of home again. Luke will forever smell of hatred and bitterness, and she goes back to her cabin and cries after realizing that, because all she's ever wanted is _home._

* * *

Home continues to evade her for many, many years till she almost gives up hoping and waiting. Then one day she feels like something is wrong. Her gut lurches and twists in ways she never knew it could. Today is different. Something is wrong. The hair on the back of her neck rises. Something is very, very wrong indeed.

Camp is sunny, like always, but on the other side of the border rain beats hard against the ground. Annabeth wonders if Poseidon and Zeus are fighting again. Weather recently has been exceptionally bad.

Then there are shouts from the border—Annabeth breaks into a run. What's going on?

She sees blurry figures in the rain as she runs, a tall, hulking figure that bears an uncanny resemblance to the Minotaur and a smaller, thinner figure that looks like a demigod.

She stops, panting, by the Big House. She's too far away from the border, so she missed the entire fight, but there's a boy by the porch of the Big House. She leans over him and notes his messy black hair and scrawny self. If there's a child of the Big Three out there, and she's certain there is, they wouldn't be this scrawny and weak. He doesn't look like he can hold a sword up without collapsing.

Then she smells the scent he has on him, and she freezes in shock. She leans down and whispers to him, more absentmindedly than anything else, " _He's the one. He must be."_ Chiron comes galloping around, and he snatches the boy from her and hauls him to the infirmary quickly but gently.

Home. He smells of home.

And Annabeth trusts this demigod, because really—the scent of home has always led her in the right direction.

* * *

She looks after him till he wakes, and expressive green eyes stare into hers. She stifles a gasp. Those eyes…they swirl with power no demigod his age should have, and with power she has only seen once before: in Thalia.

She shakes her head with apprehension. He can't be a child of the Big Three. He can't.

He mumbles incoherently a few times, and then his eyes close, and he slumps back into the pillows. Annabeth watches him till the sun rises.

* * *

The first thing she asks him when he wakes is, "What will happen at the summer solstice?"

He chokes out a bewildered, confused, "What?" and Annabeth resists the urge to roll her eyes.

She glances around, making sure no one could overhear. "What's going on? What was stolen? We've only got a few weeks!"

"I'm sorry," he mumbles softly, eyes staring up at her in concentration. "I don't…"

Someone knocks on the door and she quickly stuffs his mouth full of ambrosia. He falls asleep again. She leans over and breathes in the smell of home again. She trusts him.

* * *

He's a Son of Poseidon. Annabeth doesn't know what to think of this new development. Athena and Poseidon's rivalry…the smell of home…she doesn't get it. It doesn't add up. What should she do?

She goes to Luke for advice, but Luke just laughs her off. "No one can smell like home, Annabeth," he says plainly, as though it should be obvious, and Annabeth tries hard not to cry. She had always been able to rely on Luke to _listen_ no matter what and for him to just brush her off like that hurt more than anything else.

She gravitates back to Percy. If Luke wanted to be like that, so be it.

* * *

Luke is gone.

That's all she can think numbly as she goes back to her cabin in a daze. Luke's a traitor. Luke's her older brother. The two sides wrestle for her attention. She doesn't know what to think anymore.

She stays away from Percy for a few days afterwards. Luke smelt of home, as did Thalia. And both had left her. Thalia sacrificed herself. Luke's a traitor. And she wonders if Thalia would have sacrificed herself that day if she knew she was saving a little girl who relied on the smell of home and a traitor. She doesn't think so.

And Percy will leave her in the end, just like they all did.

She buries her head in her pillow and cries.

* * *

Thalia's back, alive and kicking.

She doesn't know what to think or feel.

She puts her hand under Thalia's nose so she can feel her hot breath, watches Thalia's chest rise and fall in a rhythm once so familiar to her but feels foreign now, and she cries, because _oh gods Thalia's back,_ and she feels like a seven year old again. Fragile and relying, always relying on others.

And she knows she should be ashamed of herself, but she doesn't worry purely about Thalia's health at all, as much as she wants to. Thalia will be the prophecy child at this rate, she can tell, and Percy will survive. He will be standing next to her even as Thalia falls.

And she's selfish and disgusting and she knows it, but all she can think is _if Thalia wakes up, she'll be the prophecy child, and her soul will get reaped by the cursed blade. Percy won't be the one of the prophecy. He will survive._

All she ever wanted was for him to survive.

And she sits by the corner of the room and watches Thalia through the night, trying to convince herself not to wish Thalia would fall instead of Percy, but she just looks at Thalia and all that she's convinced herself of falls away, like the layers of an onion, because the girl on the bed is a stranger.

She doesn't know if this girl wrinkles her nose like Thalia does when she's cold, she doesn't know if this Thalia dunks her fries with both chili and tomato sauce like Thalia does, she doesn't know anything about this stranger.

She leans over Thalia, breaths in the smell of ozone and fresh pine needles. No home.

She cries.

* * *

When Thalia comes up to them glowing silver she blinks back tears.

No. Percy will die when he's sixteen.

She looks at Percy and sees him grinning that famous, lopsided grin at Thalia and they joke and laugh for a while. Thalia comes close and wraps Annabeth in a hug. She breathes in ozone and pine needles and the scent of the wild, plants and animals and everything she can think of.

Over Thalia's shoulder she sees Percy's smile drop. Exhaustion and anger and the one that scares Annabeth the most, _pure fear,_ is in his eyes.

No, she thinks. No. I will not let Perseus Jackson die.

Thunder rumbles, and even though she didn't swear on the River Styx and it was probably Zeus being dramatic, she likes to think of it as an oath as unbreakable as one sworn on the River Styx itself.

* * *

Percy hasn't left her yet. And he still smells of home. And he fought a war and survived. And he's here with her and really, that's all that ever mattered.

As he threads his arm through hers and kisses her gently, she smiles against his lips.

For the first time since Luke turned out to be a traitor, she allows herself to hope that just this once, home wouldn't desert her.

* * *

Of course home does. Of course Percy vanishes. Of course there's another prophecy. Of course their luck doesn't last.

She crumples his jacket to her chest and sniffs the fabric again. The faint scent of salt and oceans and freedom and _home_ is almost gone by now, her last piece of Percy.

All she's ever wanted is a happy ending to their story. Is that too much to ask?

Of course it is, her mind answers her own question.

As she cries salty tears into his jacket, she thinks it's only fitting that there's salt on the son of the god of oceans' jacket.

* * *

He's back. He's a praetor of the Roman camp. Of course he is, her mind laughs. Seaweed Brain.

Her mind's flooded with worries. Oh gods, water descriptions? Had Percy really influenced her that much?

Somehow, she doesn't mind the fact she thinks like her idiot boyfriend.

She takes a deep breath, chest full of panic and fear and exhaustion and worry and relief all at once, and she feels like it's one of her last breaths.

They land and Annabeth singles out Reyna. She looks the same way Annabeth does—fear and panic and hope and worry and relief all stuffed behind a mask that starts to crack at the edges.

Percy appears, and her breath catches in her throat. She drinks in the sight of him—all tan skin and muscles and smiles and she's never seen anything better.

She rushes to him at the same moment he does, and her fears are eased slightly when she realizes that they are in sync.

Percy throws his arms around her. Their lips touch, and Percy tastes of ocean air and salt and of everything good in the world. She breathes in the smell of the ocean, and she feels like it's one of her first breaths.

"Gods, I never thought—" His voice is rough and hoarse, and it washes over her like the ocean, soothing and calming yet hiding inner conflict at the same time.

Annabeth judo-flips him over her shoulder. He slams hard into stone. Romans cry out in alarm.

She doesn't care.

Somewhat dimly, she hears Reyna shout, "Hold! Stand down!"

 _Oh my freaking gods he remembers me Seaweed Brain di immortals,_ Annabeth thinks, and panic and worry and fear melts away and all that matters is his warm wrist in her tan hand and his skin feels so, so good against hers compared to memories of beaches and sunsets and blue cupcakes. "If you ever leave me again," she says, her eyes stinging, "I swear to all the gods—"

"Consider me warned," Percy says, and she feels warmth pool in her stomach again at his voice. "I missed you, too."

She smiles, which she hasn't done in a long, long time, and her cheek muscles hurt. She helps him up, and he smiles that crooked, crooked grin at her and she resists the urge to kiss that grin right off his face.

He stands up and entwines their fingers. She feels the warmth rising in her, and for once, she just relaxes into his side, breathing in the smell of home.

* * *

They sneak out in the middle of the night, their fingers entwined as they close Percy's door behind them.

She leads him past the engine room, and they laugh softly and joke about as they make their way to the stables. He lies down on the ground first, and she follows. The room smells of hay and wool blankets, and she decides she likes it.

They chat throughout the night and reminisce about old memories—the zoo truck they took to Las Vegas, and they talk, talk about all that they've kept to themselves for the past few days, new Rome, the nightmare Percy was having when she woke him up, everything they can think of.

She cuddles up against him as her eyelids droop, he wraps an arm around her, and she breathes in the smell of home and thinks, "Perfection."

They get in trouble the next day, and for the first time in her life Annabeth doesn't care. She'll do it all over again if she can.

* * *

They fall into hell, arms wrapped around each other, eyes wide and disbelieving.

She can't believe they're in hell, _hell._ What have they done to deserve this?

Annabeth remembers a five year old girl, lips curved up in a smile, holding a storybook and imagining a happily ever after.

She buries her face in Percy's chest, breathes in the smell of home, and cries.

* * *

They hobble through Tartarus, arms weak and breathing shallow, and she inhales the faint smell of home, tainted by bitterness and anger and regret, and really, she hates it. She wishes she'd cut away the spider silk in time so they never fell, and even though Gaia might kill them all in less than a week, she doesn't care. Even if the world might end tomorrow, she doesn't care, doesn't care, doesn't care, if only she'll smell home again.

And she knows she's selfish, but she can't bring herself to care about the fate of the world, if the boy that's leaning heavily against her isn't in it.

"Annabeth…" he croaks, and his voice is soft and fragile and she can tell he's at his breaking point.

"Percy," she says, and her voice is equally broken. "Percy."

"Annabeth," he repeats, "Annabeth."

And that's what keeps her going, that broken repeat of her name over and over again in this foreign land, the way he says her name, as though she's the only light at the end of this long, dark tunnel that never ends.

* * *

They see light.

It isn't much, just a tiny sliver of light but it seems blinding to her, and oh gods, she has never seen anything better. "Just a bit more," she whispers to Percy. "Just a bit more."

Percy's eyes, originally wild with anger, are scrunched shut, and he grunts with the effort of keeping the elevator together. "What if I don't have a bit more, Annabeth? What if all that's left is less than a bit?"

She has no answer to that, and they grit their teeth and struggle and _hope_ , because at that point all that keeps them going is hope.

Then there's a crisp 'ding' and the Doors pop open. She and Percy fall out, knees crumpling, eyes squeezed shut to block out the light, light that should be dim but is brighter than anything Annabeth has ever experienced in her life.

And Annabeth is so, so tired then, exhaustion creeps up on her and tackles her to the ground and it's like all the weakness she felt in Tartarus was ganging up on her and coming back in one terrible rush then something warm covers her…arm? Leg? She has no idea which body part is which, arms and legs and hands and feet and face and elbow, which is which? Her mind is scrambled.

Then she hears something old and comforting and soothing, and it works as well as any lullaby. "Annabeth," he says. "Annabeth."

Darkness swallows her.

* * *

She wakes earlier than he does, jolting awake in her bed, staring up at the ceiling.

"Where—what—" she tries to get all the questions she has out in one breath, and someone—a girl, with choppy brown hair and _who is she?_

Piper, a name pops into her head as her shoulders tense and she shrinks against the wall. Piper.

The word makes no sense to her. Who is Piper? The girl in front of me?

Her brain supplies her with images of warm sunny afternoons and good advice and ice cream, and she relaxes. The word makes sense to her now.

"Piper," she says, and her voice is hoarse and broken.

Piper's face crumples with relief. "Annabeth," she says, and the name is drawn out across her tongue, like she's savoring it. "Thank the gods."

"P-p-per—" She tries to say, but her throat constricts and _oh gods, what if Percy didn't make it?_

Her stuttering makes sense to Piper though, and her face shows nothing but care and concern and relief when she says it. "He'll live."

 _Di immortals._ She sinks back into the bed. "T-t-th-ank you," she tells Piper sincerely. And it's true. She had never been more grateful for anything else.

Piper suddenly seems to come to life, like a toy whose key was turned. "Have some water, Annabeth," she demands, shoving a glass under her nose. Annabeth starts at it unblinkingly for a moment. "Are you all right, Annabeth?"

She doesn't know what look she gives Piper, but Piper's cheeks flush and she murmurs, "Sorry," under her breath. She feels her heart soften. It isn't Piper's fault. She truly is concerned about her.

She takes the glass of water and drinks it in big gulps.

She gives Piper a last weak smile as she sinks back into the pillows. "Thanks," she says, and her voice is steadier, stronger now.

"Oh!" Piper rises to her feet. "I better go tell the others you're awake. Take a nap, Annabeth." Her eyes are soft with care as she looks at Annabeth, and she feels extremely thankful at that moment for having such a wonderful friend.

Piper shuts the door gently behind her and Annabeth sinks into the soft pillows on the bed.

 _Percy is safe. Percy is safe. Home._

She falls asleep with a smile on her face.

* * *

When she's strong enough she rushes out of her room with five demigods after her.

"Don't be rash, Annabeth," Jason pleads. "Rest till you're well enough, please."

"Yes, don't endanger your health, Annabeth!" Hazel chimes in, golden eyes fixed on her.

The others pip in with annoying comments and pleads and she doesn't care. She just needs to curl her fingers in Percy's hair and hold him close and breath in the smell of home and reassure herself that he's there.

"If your other half is in bed and he hasn't woken up for days, you would do the same."

Four demigods are silent, and Annabeth takes that as a win and steps past them. "Not me!" Leo chips in.

"You don't have an other half. If you did, I'm sure you would do the same. Would you?" To emphasize her point, she glares at Leo.

Leo gulps and steps away.

She steps into Percy's room with no more disruptions.

The room smells like salt, like the sea, like what's she missed for days, and she feels the Percy-sized hole in her start to patch itself up.

It smells like home, as she knows there and then that she won't care if she died if he's alive.

* * *

He wakes four days, six hours and twenty seven minutes after she does. She should know. She counted. The moment he opens those wonderful sea green eyes she was starting to worry she wouldn't ever get to see again, she's there, crushing him in a hug, breathing in the weak smell of home.

"Percy," she breathes into his hair. "You're all right." Percy's hand had already slipped to his pocket, weak fingers fumbling for riptide. "You're safe. We're out of Tartarus."

She doesn't think he really understands what she's saying; especially when he looks up at her with a confused expression that mirrors a baby seal's. Then he seems to recognize her.

"Annabeth," he says, arms slipping around her waist. "Annabeth."

"I'm here," she half sobs into his hair. "I'm here. We're all right. We're fine."

Percy sighs into her ear and shifts them so they're in a more comfortable position. "Annabeth," he repeats."You know we're _not fine_."

She looks up at him with teary eyes. Normally she will berate herself for showing weakness in front of anyone else, but this is _Percy,_ the boy who's been with her every step of her life. Well, except when Hera stole him away. It leaves a sour taste in her mouth when she thinks of it.

"We're fine. We have to be fine, Percy. _We have to."_

"But we're not." He mumbles into her hair.

"No, we're not."

 _And we will never be._

She breathes in the smell of home and they sit there, tangled on his bed, arms and legs and everything entwined.

 _We have to be fine. We have to._

* * *

They all assemble by default in the dining room after taking out two giants and a pack of hellhounds.

"One more day," Piper says softly, and yet her voice echoes through the room.

"One more day," Percy echoes. "One more."

 _Then we all die_ remained unsaid.

Annabeth cuddles closer into Percy and closes her eyes. She pretends tomorrow doesn't exist, that they won't die tomorrow, and she just savors the taste of home for a moment.

Then she stands up and takes charge. That one moment was a moment of the past already. "Piper, Frank, the two of you are on watch duty—"

Looking around at the tired, weary faces of her friends, she wants nothing more than to sink into Percy's side and cry.

* * *

She has seen enough wars and fights to last a lifetime, and she can't believe she's ever wanted war just so she could get out of camp. War and battles are horrifying.

She breathes in and smells blood, copper and metallic, and dust litters the ground. She leaps past a giant and stabs at a hellhound with her knife before whirling around to avoid a spear from hitting her stomach.

Her mind's on autopilot, _stabslashduckswinghitrolljumpdodgeparry_ then Percy's in front of her, blocking a sword she hadn't seen coming. She sends him a grateful smile and leaps back to battle.

Before long, they're back to back, monsters coming from every possible direction. She's pretty sure her clothes are caked with monster dust and dried blood but all that matters now is living to see tomorrow with Percy.

She exchanges a smirk with Percy. "Just like old times, Seaweed Brain?"

He smirks back and cleaves a cyclops in two. "You bet, Wise Girl."

She takes a deep breath, breathes in the smell of home with the fresh, salty scent of the ocean. It's her only hope now in the midst of battle, that she will live to smell this again. She leaps into battle.

* * *

She feels him fall before she sees him fall.

The cyclops that had scratched Percy's chest falters for a split second as Percy clutches his chest in agony and swipes at its legs. That second of hesitation is all Percy needs.

The monster dissolves into dust.

Percy continues murdering monsters left and right, but she can tell that the cut is big, and his flesh has been ripped apart. Annabeth has seen enough wounds to last a lifetime, and she knows when it's fatal or not. She can see beads of sweat beading on his forehead already, his movements becoming slower, his breathing coming in harsh pants.

The wound is fatal.

Percy will die if he's not treated immediately.

She kills all monsters that stand in her way with a renewed determination as she makes her way towards him. Once she reaches his side, Percy looks up at her, gritting his teeth in pain. "Hey there, Wise Girl."

She glares at him and feels a traitorous tear welling up in the corner of her eye. She wipes it away before Percy can see.

"Don't pretend."

Percy's face becomes soft. "I'm tired, Wise Girl," he says, and she understands. He's tired of fighting, he's tired of wars, he's tired of being the gods' pawn, he's tired of it all.

"Dying is not a way to escape, Perseus Jackson. Don't be a coward." She recalls what she'd said to him all those years ago and feels a strange longing for those days, when they were still blind to the gods' cruelty, when they knew not of the horrors of war.

From the look he gives her, she can tell he's remembering the moment too. "I'm gonna die, right, Annabeth?"

Her face is pale. She shakes her head violently in denial, slashing a hellhound to show how angry she is. "You will not die, Perseus Jackson. You will _not._ "

His voice is completely opposite to Annabeth's enraged denial, soft and comforting with grim acceptance of his fate. "Yes I will, and you know that, Annie." She glares at him for the usage of the nickname, and he laughs.

They kill in grim silence for half a minute, Percy sweating buckets, and then he says, "Well, Annabeth, we know we're not gonna come out of this alive. So let's go down _Percy Jackson style."_

She snorts and shakes her head. "You have been spending too much time around Leo." He gives a weak laugh. She can tell his strength is draining. She inhales the scent of home that still surrounds him, tainted by monster stink and blood and ashes, faint but still there. She doesn't want to live in a world without him.

"If I die, I die with you. Tell me your idiotic plan, Seaweed Brain."

* * *

Percy's plan has three parts: insanely dangerous, the-world-will-perish-if-this-fails dangerous, as well as all-life-in-this-planet-wiped-out dangerous.

Basically, just your average demigod plan.

Annabeth leans into him and he wraps an arm around her, breathing the other in for one long moment, relaxing for a second. She breathes in the smell of home—one quick inhale—then they are off.

She hopes they survive.

Even though she knows they won't.

* * *

He dies first, the smell of home vanishing with him as his limp body hurtles into the air due to Gaia's rage. She crumbles into dirt then, forest green eyes telling of pain and torture staring blankly at the demigods. Those eyes would haunt them forever.

A pile of dirt on the ground.

Gaia gone.

Everybody exhales, and the battlefield explodes in emotion. Elation that they won the war, grief for all they had lost, and _PercyJacksonPercyJacksonPercyJacksonisgone_ echoes around the battlefield.

Now that Gaia is gone, the monsters are considerably weaker, and the demigods slice through them like it's nothing, laughing hysterically because _theyhadwontheyhadwondiimmortalstheywon_ and really, it isn't their fault when they don't notice the small figure forming from the pile of dirt. Annabeth does, though, and she remembers what Seaweed Brain told her to do, and that last smirk he had given her. _See you in Elysium, Wise Girl._

Home is waiting for her in Elysium.

She races forward and plunges her knife into Gaia's heart.

The world explodes in brown and Annabeth keeps looking for sea green that will never appear.

* * *

"Why, Annabeth? Why would the two of you sacrifice yourselves to save us?" Jason's face hovers above hers, and tears are rolling down his cheeks. She dimly registers that she's never seen him cry before.

"Because…" She takes in a deep, shuddering breath, heart pumping frantically in a last attempt to keep itself from going still forever. "My life has no meaning without him, and we all knew he was going to die soon. Why not?"

"Why yes?" Hazel asks, and her face is streaked with soil and blood and monster dust and tears glisten on her cheeks.

Someone's face comes up next. "I can still save you Annabeth, just wait a moment—someone help me!" Who is he? Will, some coherent part of her foggy mind reminds her. Will, son of Apollo.

Nobody moves.

"My time has come. This was meant to happen, and you all know that." She looks at each of them in the eye.

Something wet rolls down her cheek—Annabeth can't remember the name for the wet liquid's that running down her face. She looks up. Everyone who surrounds her has the same liquid in their eyes—tears, she remembers with a jolt. Tears.

"I'll see him again," she murmurs, eyes unfocused.

Piper grasps her—hand? Was that the correct term? "Yes, you will," she says, eyes shining with tears she doesn't let fall. "Join him in Elysium, Annabeth."

She takes a last feeble breath, lungs rattling in her chest.

Home. Percy.

 _One second she is there, the next she isn't._


End file.
